ECOMATERIALI CASALGRANDE PADANA2014

A book made for designers to help them with their workCasalgrande Padana manufactures ceramics for architectural applications, a business taking inspiration from eco-sustainable principles.

EcoMateriali is the book that the company has been working at to showcase its stoneware product ranges. Slabs, pieces and special features as the result of a virtuous process that takes care of environmental protection, that combines freedom and creative flexibility with superior technological and performance standards.

Standing out for a very carefully designed artwork and a well thought-out arrangement of contents, with easy consultation in mind, EcoMateriali offers a unique approach to its contents by integrating all information across multiple levels to provide different, tailored levels of reading.
Inside the book, the traditional, outmoded arrangement by ranges has been replaced with a solution that brings the reader to search by texture. A method that is certainly more in tune with a contemporary approach, giving pride of place to a search by type of material. So, designers are helped to select the products as they can navigate their way through consistent, comparable areas.EcoMateriali tries to move beyond the mere concept of the catalogue and stands out, instead, as a tool that supports the designer’s work, offering designers food for thought, detailed information and an array of references to help them explore different expressions and compositions for a creative, proper use of ceramic materials in architecture.

The main contents of the volume are introduced by Casalgrande Padana on the backdrop of stoneware, putting eco-sustainability, creativity, uniqueness, flexibility, certified quality standards at the centre, while one whole section is about bio-ceramics, a brand-new, exclusive generation of stoneware, offering absolute, certified pollution-abating, antibacterial and self-cleaning standards.

The core of the book is all about eco-materials: eco-stone, eco-marble, eco-granite, eco-metal, eco-wood, eco-concrete.
Each eco-material is described through the specific features of stoneware compared to those of the other materials. Products are illustrated by true-to-life pictures of the tiles and photographs of projects as examples of real applications, while the colour samplers and the technical specifications, including size, thickness, finishes and special parts, complete the information that are required to design a project.

All this is topped off by the eco-colour, eco-technical and eco-engineering sections.
Eco-colour describes the range where full-body vitrified and dyed stoneware has all the shine, shades, vibrancy and liveliness of the broadest colour spectrum.
Eco-technical showcases, instead, the most specialised products designed for heavy-duty or specialist applications, such as multilayer connectors, anti-slip surfaces, guidance routes and signs for the visually impaired.
Finally, eco-engineering includes a full range of innovative solutions in multiple areas: facades with absolute, certified pollution-abating and self-cleaning standards; indoor and outdoor raised floors; indoor dry self-laying floors; solutions for the installation of thin slabs; swimming pool panels.